We all know that content is king, but boring content will hurt your sales and your reputation. Think of content creation as another form of customer service, you want to be friendly, engaging and informative with every interaction. In the case of content, this means you have about three seconds to hook your reader and get them to buy in to your business.Boring, ill-written content will say “I don’t care about your time.” and “I have nothing new or unique to offer you.” Imagine a company sales rep saying this to new leads … not cool.
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In the ongoing competition for page rank on today’s largest search engines, it is possible for a small business to compete on a limited budget? Competing with big businesses can be accomplished on a budget; that is, if you know which SEO strategies to employ. When creating an effective SEO strategy, one of the most critical considerations is keyword selection. Choosing targeted, localized, and relevant keywords are key to a business’s online marketing success.
As you begin to build your localized keyword search strategy, consider the following 3 research tips:
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Keyword Brainstorming-
Before locating and reviewing keyword statistical data, spend time whiteboarding possible keywords and keyword phrases that a consumer may utilize when searching for your business’s products and services. Place yourself in the shoes of a potential buyer; sit down at your computer and start typing search terms. Next, review your website’s analytics over the past several months. What keywords and keyword phrases have been yielding the most traffic for your site?
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Identifying Target Keywords-
Now that you have generated a list of possible target keywords, it is time to narrow down your selections to those worth investing into. How can you accomplish this task? Well, you could utilize paid platforms such as Hubspot, or if you are on a limited marketing budget, you can utilize free resources such as Google’s keyword tool. Research each of the keyword phrases that you have identified, looking for the number of local monthly searches. Choose keyword and keyword phrases that yield over 100, but fewer than 1500 local monthly searches as beyond this search figure is often significant competition.
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Finalize Target Keywords-
Which keywords are utilized by consumers for information gathering purposes and which are used during the buying process? Is there a difference? Review statistical data on both the singular and plural versions of your targeted keyword phrases. Search each identified keyword phrase to ascertain how many companies you will be competing against. Also, review your current search engine results page (SERP) rank. Higher rankings place you in a more competitive environment for keywords than lower rankings. Choose keyword phrases likely to yield results in a less competitive space when starting out with a limited marketing budget.
While competing in the realm of SEO initially on a budget may require more legwork on your behalf, it can be accomplished. Over time, as you collect results to evaluate, modify your SEO keyword campaign to include those producing result and limiting or eliminating those that do not. After repetitive trial and error, you will find the niche keywords that will yield the type of website traffic and conversion results you are after.
Do you have a keyword research tool or tip that worked for your business? Share your comments below.
If you have ever attempted to market a new business venture or product using a brand new website, you have likely found yourself struggling to achieve a sufficient rank for competitive keyword. While you should never lose your resolve, you can in the meantime target less competitive but more specific long-tail keywords. These keywords are lengthier and more specific or targeted to reveal a higher level of intent (ex. “shirt” versus “medium dress shirt”) which makes it easier to guess what the search user is hunting for.
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Web design can be a key part of your business. You may be scared of web design because of its complex talk and codes. However these codes can mean a lot to your business. Just having pretty pictures and visuals on your website is not enough the behind the scenes is really the important piece.
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With the meteoric rise of inbound marketing, it’s easy to forget bread and butter SEO fundamentals like on-page SEO.
Although the days of keyword stuffing are long gone, that doesn’t mean on-page SEO died with it. Actually, with Google’s renewed interest in user experience metrics as part of their gauntlet of ranking signals, on-site SEO is more important than ever.
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Search engine optimization (SEO) is a mystery to many online newcomers, a road to happiness for savvy web content producers and a dead end for all the people who try to misuse it. Prior to the new century most people were not very familiar with how search engines worked other than they were portals that could help find websites in the ballpark of what they were searching for. Not even the search engines themselves knew how powerful they were. As the internet evolved, so did search engines, helping website owners find their niche audiences. Read more
The other night I was cruising around in Google Webmaster Tools for a e-commerce website I just launched to sort out some indexing issues. I stumbled upon a new area of GWT that caught my eye: Data Highlighter. At first I had little idea about what it entailed but after watching the video it made perfect sense. Up until this point using Microformats and structured data to improve the look of your SERP listings was a task left for a developer. Now Google as has produced an alternative that in many ways replaces the need for hiring a costly developer to ensure you are getting the most out of structured data.
What is the Google Data Highlighter?
If you want to use Structured Data on your website, which you should, this new tool from Google makes it extraordinarily easy for just about anyone to do. It seems it would help to have some previous knowledge of Structured Data and micro-formats but the tools makes it pretty simple. To explain the tool better watch the video below provided by a Google employee to give you a little overview.
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7 SEO Misconceptions Some SEO “Gurus” Swear By
SEO has undergone a 360 degree change in the last couple of years. The Google Panda and Penguin updates changed the way SEO businesses were working. They stopped their intense link-building efforts and immediately started focusing on the offer of quality content that had a useful purpose. Even so, SEO is complicated, and with the various different processes and the thousands of people focused on optimizing their websites, misconceptions are bound to arise. The point is that you learn to recognize and then ignore them when mentioned by other so called SEO gurus.
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What are Google Categories?
When you think about the type of results that Google pulls up when you search something you may start to noticed that it displays different types of results almost every time depending on what you type in. After years and years of keyword search data compiled by Google based on the way people search for things and what they are looking for they have decided to include their factors into their search algorithm to display more relevant results.
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What is Google Authorship markup?
Chances are if you use Google to search the internet then you have seen a result that shows a thumbnail photo of its author. Here is a couple visual examples of my Google+ profile linked to some content I produced to give you a better idea:
Example #1:
Example #2:
You can see from the examples how authorship markup effects the SERPs (search engine results pages). I want to point out that my photo of myself skating is bending the rules slightly in that Google requires the photo be a good face picture. I am working to get a better photo of my face in there but wanted to test the limits of what Google would allow and somehow the photo above passed the test.
Click here to read more information from Google on authorship.
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